How does MDBR differ from other DNS filtering services, such as Cisco Umbrella or Quad9?

MDBR is similar to other services in that they all block malicious outbound DNS requests. The main differences come down to threat intelligence, logging of DNS look ups, reporting, and the ability to log into a customer portal.

While Quad9 offers no logging or reporting capability, most other commercial offerings include these capabilities with the paid version of their service. In most cases, vendors also have a no-cost option that does not offer logging or reporting capabilities. In the case of commercial offerings from Cisco, Akamai, and Cloudflare, customers also have the ability to log into a portal to generate reports and administer the service.

With MDBR, CIS provides weekly reporting related to the blocks that have occurred. Although the membership will receive reports from CIS, they will not have the ability to directly log into the Akamai portal or download logs directly from Akamai. These additional features will be available as a for-fee option through the CIS CyberMarket from Akamai.